


Arcane

by SoraMoto



Series: Podcast Scripts [13]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Vague discussion of genocide, children used as arks, last of kind mentality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-07 16:45:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16412165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoraMoto/pseuds/SoraMoto
Summary: Task with preserving all that makes up her people, a young girl hides in the mountains doing just that.





	Arcane

It has been years since she came here. To this place high in the mountains with only her people’s knowledge and history. It had been crammed into her mind as a young child when they were attacked by man. A last ditch effort to preserve themselves. It nearly proved futile, and some would say it had been regardless of her presence now. She had not been the only one they tried to send away.

Every child under five and able to walk had been gathered in the town square as the elders brewed the potion that would imbue them with their people’s knowledge and history, their culture. They were loaded down with packs full of food and precious belongings. Reminders of their homes. The elders told the parents that their children were there because only they had minds not yet hardened by age, soft minds that could take in all of the knowledge about to be poured into them.

They drank and it worked. The knowledge was there, safe to not be lost. Except that the journey to escape now fell on these same children. They were given small weapons, mostly knives, in order to defend themselves before being sent in pairs in different directions, one boy and one girl.

She had been sent off with William.

He was older than her by a year. She remembers their parents telling him to take care of her, that together they could save their people. She hadn’t known then what they meant, it took time for that knowledge to come forth.

They were told to head into the mountains, to find a safe place to hide.

It's a shame that no one knew the dangers waiting just outside their village.

Once out of sight of their village they were attacked, the men making mention of the fates of the children that were leaving from the other directions out of the town.

William, brave boy, pulled the knife they had been given, quickly cutting the straps of her pack before forcing it into her hands and telling her to run.

No time to freeze, she ran. She could hear the men shout to go after her, but William must have put up a grand fight as she was able to make it into a wooded glen and climb a tree, hiding in its branches. She stayed there for hours until it became dark and she could feel the hunger gnawing at her belly.

Even so she stayed the night in that tree, not trusting the men to have left the area.

It was the next morning before she came down from the tree and began the trek toward the mountains once more. She still owed it to her people to find a way to preserve their knowledge, their culture.

The ink spreads across the page under the guidance of the quill pen. She is finally recounting those last days of her people as she knows them.

Here in this stone lodge where she has spent the last twenty years, surviving, recording. She did not know for sure that she is all that was left, but it was a fair bet to assume so after what happened to her and William.

Letting out a sigh she sets aside the quill and pinches a small amount of fine powder from a bowl beside her. The powder will help set the ink and prevent it from smudging as it dries. Once spread on the page she shuffles it around to make sure it is evenly distributed before setting it aside to dry. She’ll bind it with the other pages once they are dry.

Standing she stretches her arms above her and looks around the space that makes up her home. It is small in size with a solid table near the fire and the stone cauldron she had made to cook in. Her bed is just long enough for her short stature and twice as wide as her slim build. It is covered in furs from game she has hunted over the years of living here. There is only the one chair, which she moves from the writing desk to the table now that she is done for the night.

The fire sparks and crackles ash she goes about ladling a bowl of stew from the cauldron and setting it beside her. Tough roots and rabbit. Simple, but filling.

Come morning she will bind the latest volume and store it inside the library, a vast cave set into the cliff face behind her home. She was lucky to find such a large dry space. With some careful work she had been able to carve shelves into the walls, the perfect place to seal away the records she is working so hard to make and preserve.

Tonight will also be the last night she spends in this place. After storing the last volume of her people, she plans to seal the cave and leave. Trekking out of the mountains and confirming that her people are gone.

Despite the unlikely nature of it, she still clings to the hope that others survived. That she is not the last to remain. Maybe, if she clings to that hope, the work of these last twenty years will not have been necessary. That she will be welcomed home by her mother and father with open arms. Proud of their daughter for preserving their memory.

The food tastes bland as she eats quickly before rinsing the bowl in a basin and scrubbing it with sand. Another quick dunk in the basin and the bowl is deemed clean and set aside to dry.

Slipping into bed, she snuggles down and counts the rafters until she falls asleep. Tomorrow is the start of the next stage of her journey.


End file.
